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Automated answering service: IVR versus AI, and what each costs
"Automated" used to mean a menu of key presses. In 2026 it mostly means software that holds a real spoken conversation without a person on the other end. This page prices the second kind, the one actually sold as a product today, from a genuinely free plan up to the cheapest paid options that hold up at real call volume.
Short answer: the cheapest automated plan that actually answers a call is $29 a month (Dialzara Business Lite, 60 minutes). One plan in our data is genuinely free rather than a trial: Smith.ai AI Receptionist Free at $0 for 25 calls. Developer platforms like Bland AI and Retell AI skip the monthly fee entirely and bill only per minute. Verified July 2026.
Automated phone answering system: old IVR or new AI?
"Press 1 for sales, press 2 for billing, press 3 to wait" is what most people picture when they hear "automated." That style of menu tree, technically an IVR, is usually a feature bundled into a business phone system rather than something sold on its own, which is why it does not show up as a priced product in our data: there is no vendor page to build, because there is no standalone plan to compare.
What has actually replaced it, and what every vendor on this page sells, is conversational AI. The caller talks in full sentences, the software answers in kind, and it can look up availability, book a slot, take a message or transfer the call without ever asking anyone to press a number. That is the "automated" this page prices: not a phone tree, a receptionist made of software.
The two are not really competing products, they are different generations of the same job, and the newer one is what shows up in vendor pricing pages now. None of the vendors we track sell a plain IVR as their headline product, and none of the plans in the table below mention key presses anywhere in their own descriptions. If a quote you get elsewhere still leads with "press 1," treat that as a sign the product is older than the pricing page suggests, and ask directly whether callers can just talk.
The cheapest automated options, priced
Sorted by price, using only fully-automated vendors (no human line in their own product) and only plans that actually pick up a call, the same rule our cheap answering service page applies across the whole market.
| Vendor and plan | Price | What is included |
|---|---|---|
| Dialzara Business Lite | $29/mo | 60 minutes |
| Rosie Professional | $49/mo | 250 minutes |
| Simple Phones Basic | $49/mo | 100 calls a month |
| Goodcall Starter | $79/mo | 100 unique customers |
| My AI Front Desk Business-in-a-Box | $99/mo | 200 voice minutes |
| Answrr Starter | $99/mo | 300 minutes (5 hours) |
| NextPhone Pro | $199/mo | unlimited calls |
| Slang.ai Core | $399/mo | per location |
Dialzara's Business Lite plan is the floor at $29, but it holds only 60 minutes, close to one call a day. Treat it as a trial-sized tier rather than a working plan for real volume, and budget for the overage or the next tier up once you know your actual call count.
The one plan that is actually free, not just cheap
Smith.ai's AI Receptionist Free plan covers 25 calls at $0 a month, then $3.00 a call after that. It does not appear in the table above because Smith.ai is not a fully-automated vendor, it also sells a live-agent human line under the same brand, priced on our legal answering service page where that per-call model does most of its work. For a business testing whether AI answering works at all before spending anything, this is the lowest-risk starting point in our entire dataset, and the broader category it belongs to, without our IVR-versus-AI framing, is priced on AI answering service pricing.
Two developer-facing platforms go further and drop the monthly fee altogether: Bland AI's Start plan needs no card and bills only $0.14 a minute, and Retell AI's pay-as-you-go tier starts from $0.07 a minute with 20 concurrent calls, $10 free credit. Both assume someone is building the call flow rather than buying a finished product, which is a different job than the ready-made plans in the table above.
When is automated enough, and when do you need a person?
Automated handles predictable, low-stakes calls well: hours, directions, appointment confirmations, simple booking, the questions with the same answer every time. It struggles with anything that needs judgement, an upset caller, an ambiguous request, a situation the script was not written for. The honest way to decide is not "AI or human" in the abstract, it is call by call.
We work through that trade-off in full, cost and capability both, on AI receptionist versus answering service. If your answer is that some calls genuinely need a person, the full priced list of live, human-answered plans is on live answering service. Most businesses that outgrow full automation do not abandon it, they route the hard calls to a human and leave the rest on AI, the same split we price by billing model on phone answering service pricing. For calls you would rather not answer live at all, a text back instead of a pickup is its own, cheaper category, priced on missed call text back.
You miss about 10 calls a week, and roughly 3 of those callers would have booked.
Cheapest working plan, then the genuinely free option
Dialzara Business Lite at $29 is the cheapest automated plan in our data that actually answers the phone, with a 7-day free trial on inbound voice plans. Smith.ai's AI Receptionist Free plan costs nothing at low volume if you want to test the idea first.
Check Dialzara pricing Check Smith.ai pricing
Dialzara runs no affiliate program with us and is named anyway because it is the cheapest plan that works.
Where to go next
- AI against human, the full cost and capability breakdown
- Live answering service: every human-only plan, priced
- The cheapest working plan across humans and AI both
- Per minute, per call or flat rate, compared across every category
- Automated calls in a medical office: what changes with HIPAA
- Automated intake for a law firm: what changes with confidentiality
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest automated answering service?
Dialzara Business Lite at $29 a month, which holds 60 minutes, is the cheapest fully-automated plan in our data that actually answers a call. Smith.ai's AI Receptionist Free plan is cheaper still at $0, covering 25 calls, but it sits outside a vendor whose main business is a human answering service, so we price it separately below. Verified July 2026.
Is an automated phone answering system the same thing as an IVR?
Not anymore. "IVR" usually means the old press-1-for-sales menu tree, a feature of a business phone system rather than a standalone product, which is why we do not track a separate IVR price on this site. What gets called "automated" and sold as its own product in 2026 is conversational AI: software that understands a spoken sentence, not a key press, and can book, transfer or take a message without a menu.
Is there a free automated answering option?
Yes, one that is actually free rather than a time-limited trial: Smith.ai AI Receptionist Free covers 25 calls at no monthly cost, then $3.00 a call after that. Answrr runs the best no-card trial we found on a paid plan: 14-day free trial with 60 minutes, no credit card required. Developer platforms go further still: Bland AI's Start plan needs no card and no monthly fee at all, billed only per minute of use.
When should I upgrade from automated to a human answering service?
When the call needs judgement a script cannot fake: an upset caller, a complicated or ambiguous request, anything where getting it wrong costs more than the plan does. Routine bookings, hours, directions and simple confirmations are exactly what automated handles well and cheaply. We size up that trade-off in full on AI receptionist versus answering service and price the human side on live answering service.